Bug 323953 – app-emulation/virtualbox-ose-3.0.12 Annoying registration window

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Fabian Köster 2010-06-14 15:22:13 UTC]

Everytime I start VirtualBox OSE it asks for registration at Sun. If you click cancel it will reappear again on next start. This is very annoying and it should be at least possible to deactivate this window. Better: Disable automatic popup completely, allow registration only via menu (The option is already there: Help -> Register VirtualBox)

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Michael Weber (RETIRED) 2010-06-14 22:17:38 UTC]

Have you checked the license? RESO/INVALID?

[Comment 2 Fabian Köster 2010-06-14 22:38:56 UTC]

Yes, I have: It is completely licensed under the GPLv2.

Therefore It is absolutely no problem to remove this dialog.

btw: The Ubuntu people already disabled it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ose/+bug/285684

[Comment 3 Fabian Köster 2010-06-14 23:00:42 UTC]

I dived slightly into the build-scripts and found two interesting variables in src/VBox/Frontends/VirtualBox/Makefile.kmk:

# Ask the user to register at Sun. If this setting is disabled the user can
# still register using the menu if desired.
VBOX_WITH_REGISTRATION_REQUEST := 1

# Show the update notifier dialog during startup. If this setting is disabled
# the user can still update using the menu if desired.
VBOX_WITH_UPDATE_REQUEST := 1

Disabling the first would solve this bug. I filed a separate bug for the second one:  #324033

I append an ebuild which fixes this bug for version 3.0.12.

[Comment 4 Fabian Köster 2010-06-14 23:01:11 UTC]

Created attachment 235331 [details]
Ebuild which unsets VBOX_WITH_REGISTRATION_REQUEST

[Comment 5 Patrick Lauer 2010-06-16 06:30:36 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Created an attachment (id=235331) [details]
> Ebuild which unsets VBOX_WITH_REGISTRATION_REQUEST
> 

That looks good, can anyone test and confirm that it does actually work?

[Comment 6 Lars Wendler (Polynomial-C) (RETIRED) 2010-06-16 10:08:15 UTC]

Could you please test if this is still an issue with virtualbox-ose-3.1.8? I've been told in #vbox that this is no longer a problem with >=virtualbox-3.1

In case you don't know how to install a not yet stable virtualbox here's a small on-eliner:

  for pkg in $(qlist -CIq virtualbox) ; do echo "~${pkg}-3.1.8" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords ; done

You need qlist from app-portage/portage-utils package to make the above one-liner work.

[Comment 7 Fabian Köster 2010-06-16 12:21:36 UTC]

I removed .VirtualBox, emerged virtualbox-3.1.8, started it and there is neither an update-message, nor a registration-request, so this should be fixed in 3.1.8 (and above?)

[Comment 8 Fabian Köster 2010-07-14 16:03:22 UTC]

app-emulation/virtualbox-3.1.8 got stable on x86 and amd64 (#bug 320595), so this is fixed too.